Nerima Home Companion: Paying Respects
by Ukyou Kuonji
Summary: Ranma in the style of Garrison Keillor: twenty years in the future, Soun Tendo passes away, and...


[The stage is dimly lit, and empty, and the audience awaits the featured   
speaker. He walks onstage, carrying a metre-high three-legged stool.   
He sets it down, center stage front, and as the spotlight falls upon   
him, we notice the dark circles under his eyes. He has aged twenty   
years or so since we recall him, but it is clearly Hikaru Gosunkugi.   
His days of dabbling with voodoo long behind him, he now holds forth   
weekly on this very stage, and his gravy-like voice (well, it's brown   
and lumpy, anyway, as he would say) is carried across Japan on NHK   
public radio.  
  
[The audience is silent as he begins his monologue:]  
  
"It's been a quiet week in the Nerima district of Tokyo, my hometown...  
  
================================  
  
NERIMA HOME COMPANION:  
Paying Respects  
a Ranma 1/2 fanfiction by Ukyou Kuonji  
  
with all respect paid to Rumiko Takahashi and Garrison Keillor  
  
================================  
  
It's been a quiet week in the Nerima district of Tokyo, my hometown --   
which is really rather unusual. Even more so, when you consider all   
the folks that showed up there again after long absences. Soun Tendo   
passed away a little while back, and everybody, but everybody had to   
return to pay their respects.  
  
Even me. I don't go back very often, I'll admit, for all the talking   
I do about the place. Matter of fact, it's all the talking I do that   
tends to render me somewhat unwelcome there. The district got enough   
unwanted publicity back in the days when a Ms. Takahashi made a comic   
book series out of the strange goings-on there when I was still in high   
school. Now, the fact that a former resident is making a profit off   
the curious events in Nerima is sufficient for some to regard me as a   
bit of a turncoat. I can understand it, and I accept it. So I stay   
away, most of the time. Like Nabiki, I still have my sources, though.  
  
But for Mr. Tendo's funeral, I had to go back. Besides, there's   
something about a funeral that causes everyone to be more civil. You   
remember how long it's been since you've last seen so-and-so, and how   
they don't look as good as they used to, and how you'd better make   
their last remembrance of you as pleasant as possible. Meanwhile,   
they're thinking the same thing about you, so all around, everyone   
acts a little nicer toward everyone else, and everyone feels a little   
more comfortable. That's an important thing in a place like Nerima,   
where comfort can be a fleeting commodity.  
  
Not only were folks actually civil for a change, but even the mourning   
itself was rather subdued. Not that there weren't plenty of tears for   
old man Tendo -- he was a good man, and he'll be sorely missed -- but   
the flow wasn't anything more than he himself could have conjured up   
from his own eyes, given a good excuse... or even a flimsy one. Even   
then, it was enough to eclipse the funeral of former PM Hashimoto, as   
far as actual grief goes.  
  
Even the district councilmen sent a ridiculously large wreath to the   
dojo in his memory. As if the place wasn't conspicuous enough already,   
now Ranma and Akane had to contend with this eight-foot crepe, sagging   
under the weight of Kami alone knows how many and what kind of flowers.   
There was no good place to put it but outside the gates until the actual   
funeral. Only Ryoga himself could miss the place now. Neither Akane   
nor Ranma liked the thing, but it wouldn't be polite to just get rid of it.   
Nor would they let their son Akima use it as a practice dummy, much   
as Ranma may have liked the idea in theory. Their younger daughter   
Noriko suggested picking a few flowers out at a time and bringing them   
to her flower-arranging class. Unfortunately, at that rate, she figured  
it might take a year or so to dismantle the thing...  
  
It's really rather strange, having a funeral in Nerima. Sometimes   
you'd think no one ever dies here. Certainly, Happosai and Cologne are   
both still alive and kicking, proof positive that only the good die   
young. Or is it that only the young die good?   
  
So I had to go a see what it would be like, and to possibly even catch   
up with a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while. Once I got out on   
the road, though, I remembered one other reason why I hadn't been back   
in so long. I may only live a few wards away, nearer to downtown   
Tokyo, but it still takes some three hours to drive out there, with all   
the traffic and the convoluted roads -- and the inevitable construction   
(or destruction) projects.  
  
Needless to say, all that travel makes one both hungry and nostalgic,   
and Ucchan's Okonomiyaki-ya is the perfect place to satisfy both needs   
even now. As I walked in, I recognized a number of regulars as   
classmates from Furinkan -- in fact, I dare say the entire chem club   
had shown up there for lunch today. Of course, they'd long since   
traded in their high-collared school uniforms for the jacket and tie of   
the engineer salaryman, but with their glasses and shirt pockets   
bulging with pens, you could tell they were the same nerds they'd been   
in high school; they were just older, and making a living with it,   
rather than being ostracized for it.  
  
Ukyou continues to tend the grill, side-by-side with Konatsu. Age   
hasn't caught up with their appearances, but there's certainly a world-  
weariness in Ukyou's eyes that wasn't there before, at least, not to   
this extent. The two of them seem to have weathered thick and thin   
together over the past nearly twenty years -- they'd be a perfect   
match, you know. But try asking if there's more than appearances to   
their arrangement, and Konatsu will just smile sadly. And Ukyou?   
Well, depending on her mood, she might send you flying out the door   
courtesy of her trademark spatula, or just laugh mirthlessly. She   
never got over Ranma's marriage, and claims to have joined the ranks of   
inveterate spinsters from that day forth. Others aren't so sure...   
there are whispers that she and Konatsu may well marry or get married,   
but it'll be a secret thing when it happens, and she'll deny it to her   
dying day -- unless one of them get pregnant, and I'm not quite sure  
which one it'll be that does.  
  
As you well know, 'okonomi-yaki' means 'as you like it,' or words to   
that effect, and Ucchan's lives up to that. Up to a point. You can   
have anything to eat that you want, provided that it's okonomi-yaki.   
There once was a poor fool who made the mistake of asking if the place   
served ramen. He was given what could be diplomatically referred to as   
'an invitation to the world,' and he got to see most of it upon being   
sent into low Earth orbit for his transgression.   
  
Ramen, in particular, is a touchy subject with Ukyou, because it's a   
constant reminder of her real arch-rival, Shampoo. Never mind that   
both of them lost in the battle for Ranma's heart, and never mind that   
Ukyou has always gotten on well with Akane, the one who defeated them   
both. The two restaurateurs just don't get along, though it doesn't   
ever seem to have much to do with the restaurant business. Maybe it   
has to do with Shampoo's husbands...  
  
Since losing Ranma, Shampoo has gone through five husbands in the   
course of fifteen years. Now, this would normally be a major topic of   
local gossip, but this is Nerima, and everyone there is above that sort   
of thing. Besides, they all know the story, anyway. Turns out that   
defeating an Amazon is the easy part. What's hard is to conquer her   
every night, night after night. Apparently, her stamina in the boudoir   
is unmatchable by any male, although five strong men have died of   
exhaustion so far trying to prove otherwise. So, she's got quite a   
collection of white cheongsams to wear to the funeral: A five-time   
widow must dress the part, after all.  
  
The irony is that the one person who probably could have satisfied her   
and survived she has passed over all five times. Believe it or not,   
Mousse still works at the NekoHanten, still cleaning up the place,   
still too gentle to actually beat Shampoo up as tradition demands,   
still believing the she'll come to her senses naturally some day. And   
still wearing those rotten glasses, too. He tried contact lenses one   
time, and upon seeing the world clearly for the first time, decided he   
didn't like it. What he saw must have been just too intense for him.   
Between Shampoo's unreachable beauty and Cologne's indescribable   
ugliness, it didn't surprise me one bit to find out he was back to his   
glasses within a week. Besides, he was seeing spots in the cafe he'd   
missed umpteen times while cleaning that had transformed into   
intractable stains. Even industrial-strength cleansers couldn't get   
the dirt out that he was seeing. Best not to see it, and at least   
think the job is done, than to see clearly that the job will never   
get done sufficiently.  
  
I'm not sure I agree with his point of view, personally. A clear image   
of some other girl might be preferable to the fuzzy vision he has of   
Shampoo, and he might come to his senses. Of course, I'm one to   
talk: I can't bear the thought of sticking something in my eye like   
that to begin with; so here I am wearing glasses as I'm telling you   
this. Still, it allows me a sort of folksy, homespun look that serves   
me well.  
  
I should point out at this juncture that I wasn't the only one to have   
come in from downtown Tokyo for this occasion - Nabiki Tarou had   
actually come in several days earlier in order to make most of the   
funeral arrangements. Yes, you heard me right: Nabiki TAROU. Old   
Pansuto never did manage to get his name changed, but there was a point   
a number of years back when some American tourist interrupted him   
during one of his usual Happosai-related tirades. The gaijin pointed   
out that, to his ears, 'Pansuto' sounded more like 'pantsuit' than   
'pantyhose.'  
  
It was like divine inspiration had struck. Tarou thanked the Yank   
profusely (had the fellow only known how rare an occasion this was, he   
would have considered himself the luckiest man on earth), went out and   
traded in his hosiery and dragon-scale tunic for a couple of Italian-  
made suits, and went into business as a stockbroker. Of course, what   
the Yank had failed to mention was that pantsuits were worn primarily   
by American businessWOMEN, but Kami knows, I'm not about to be the one   
to break the news to him.  
  
Pansuto took to the stock market like a fish to water, as well he   
might. Between his remarkable intellect and utter contempt for others,   
this was a profession that suited him very nicely, if you'll pardon the   
expression. His 'people are idiots' attitude served him well at the   
Nikkei, which was just about to turn into a feast for the bearish. And   
desipte his cursed form, Tarou was a bear among bears. He made massive   
fortunes daily, feeding off companies grown fat and lazy, investing (if   
that is the proper term for it) in fleets of corporate jets to fly off   
to worldwide meetings, mahogany desks for the big honchos, and   
grandiloquent skyscrapers in downtown Tokyo rather than actually   
plowing their earnings back into their operations, where it might do   
them some good. The news that 'the Minotaur is knocking' sent many a   
CEO scurrying off in fear, trying to figure out what to jettison in   
order to render his company seaworthy in the eyes of investors. All to   
no avail. For Tarou to sell a company short was a virtual death knell,   
and the other bears on the Nikkei followed him everywhere.  
  
Needless to say, such moneymaking ability was not about to escape the   
notice of Nabiki Tendo, who hadn't seen a man with such financial   
acumen since the days when she was still dating (if you could call it   
that) Kinnosuke. It wasn't long before she challenged him to a stock-  
picking contest, which, much to his surprise (but not hers) she won.   
They began going out together, and Tarou was astonished as he began   
interfacing with a mind as sharp and contemptuous as his own -- and   
loving every minute of it. Of course, marrying Nabiki meant having   
'fem-boy' as a brother-(sister?-)in-law, but Ranma was enough fun to   
tease that having to deal with him was reasonably worthwhile. And what   
the hell... it wasn't as if he HAD to drop in on the dojo very often;   
just the occasional family function now and again.  
  
Not even then sometimes, as I found out to my peril. When I finished   
with my meal, I went straight from the Ucchan to the dojo, only to find   
the place deserted. Turns out, the funeral was being held at the Tofu   
Clinic. I guess I should have known. Martial artists may meet and fight   
at the dojo, and they still do -- I hardly need to mention that, you've   
heard me tell about so many times -- but social gatherings (I mean those   
*without* fighting at their center) revolve around food, and there is   
none greater than Kasumi Ono when it comes to that. Besides, the quiet   
gentle nature of herself and her dear doctor are a refreshing oasis, a   
sea of tranquility in the urban moonscape that is Nerima. No one pointed   
out the irony of using a doctor's office for a memorial service; Soun   
deserved a quiet dignified send-off, and if he couldn't get it at the   
clinic, he wouldn't get one anywhere, and everyone knew it.  
  
*****  
  
Folks don't go in much for irony here in Nerima, or there would have been   
a fair amount of commentary about the examination table upon which   
Soun was laid out in his casket. Not more than two weeks before,   
Shampoo had been lying on that selfsame table, face-down. She had   
endured one of the main indignities of being a victim of a Jusenkyo   
curse. Whereas Genma will now and again wind up behind bars, treated   
like the endangered species his cursed form is (and, to be fair, loving   
every minute of it), and Ryoga occasionally is threatened with becoming   
someone's next meal (thank heavens that Nerimans seem to insist on   
boiling their meat before actually cooking it), so Shampoo has to deal   
with malicious children every so often. A pair of teenage boys found   
her wandering around, and decided to tie a string of cans to her tail.   
In her human form, she practically needed the services of a proctologist   
to remove them... fortunately, Dr. Tofu is sufficiently skilled as a   
general practitioner that this did not pose him a great deal of   
difficulty.  
  
Once freed of this nuisance, Shampoo set about getting even with her   
tormentors. As it turned out, they weren't all that hard to find.   
There are some folks that still don't seem to know about the curses,   
and these boys were apparantly among them. So they never thought to   
hide from Shampoo when she went out looking for them. Of course, if   
they'd known, they would never have been so stupid as to pick *that*   
cat to tease... but this is Nerima, after all, where everyone's entitled   
to be as stupid as they choose to be.  
  
Indeed, not only didn't they hide from her, they actually showed up at   
the NekoHanten shortly after Shampoo's little medical procedure.  
She spotted them straightaway, and shoved Mousse aside to wait   
on them personally.  
  
"Can Shampoo take your order?"  
  
One of the boys gave a snorty nose-laugh ("Fhhnn-hhnn!"), while the other   
grinned. "I dunno... you gonna gave us a bottle for us to yell our orders  
into it?" Shampoo's eye twitched at this, but she struggled to keep a   
smile on her face... it was starting to get tight enough to hurt.  
  
"You know what Shampoo mean. You ready order, yes?"  
  
The Snorter waved her off. "Not just yet, okay? We're gonna take our   
time with this." She responded with a noncommittal look before turning   
around and heading for the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next.  
It was then that she heard them:  
  
"D'ja get a load of the dumb chink?" "Hhnn-hhnn-hhnn." High falsetto:   
"'Can Shampoo take your order?'" "Hhnn-hhnn-hhnn."  
  
That tore it. She put on the sweetest face she could muster, spun around,  
and headed back to their table. She had to make an effort, though, not   
to appear *too* eager.  
  
"Shampoo forget! Have chef specials in kitchen... you come see and choose,   
yes?" She took the Snorter by the hand, and the other kid barely had time  
to protest before she'd grabbed his in turn. It wasn't too long before   
they found themselves in the NekoHanten kitchens.  
  
The Smart-aleck looked around, but didn't see anything prepared for him   
and his buddy to choose from. "Okay... so, uh, where's the specials?"  
  
"You just wait." Shampoo was already up on a stepstool, reaching for a   
packet of powder. "Shampoo mix special drink for you two... Hiba-chan!"  
  
Cologne's head popped into view, and the boys clutched each other in   
fear and surprise. "What is it, Shampoo?" Then, the old woman noticed   
the two alarmed boys, and her face wrinkled (assuming there was room for   
more on her face) in irritation. "You two are new faces around here, I   
take it..."  
  
They relaxed their grip on each other as they realized they were talking   
to a person rather than some ghostly troll. Matter of fact, they backed   
away from each other rather hurriedly, as it occurred to them that they   
had been holding onto each other. "Uh... yeah, that's true..."  
  
Shampoo handed the packet to Cologne, and gabbled something to her in  
the Amazon dialect. Cologne nodded as she took the powder, taking a   
quick glance at the boys, who were now back to their insolent selves.  
Even more so, as the old troll hopped away, returning in less than a   
minute with a pitcher full of ice cold water.  
  
"Special drink, huh?" Smartass was staring at the pitcher. "Whatcha got   
in there, some 'ancient Chinese secret'? Huh?"  
  
"Hhhnnn-hhnn."  
  
Shampoo just smiled, and set the pitcher down on the counter next to the   
two boys. "Is something like that. Shampoo get glasses for you two."   
She clambered up onto the counter to reach for some rather elaborate-  
looking mugs...  
  
...and in rummaging around, kicked the pitcher of instant Maoniichuan   
over onto the two boys. "Ooops! Shampoo so clumsy! Must dry stupid  
boys off!" But of course, they weren't boys at this point.  
  
She leaped down from the counter, and grabbed the two cats by their   
haunches. Both of them were squirming frantically trying to get out   
of this madwoman's grasp. But they were fighting against three thousand   
years of Amazon tradition; there was no way they were about to free   
themselves.  
  
Until one of them, in his terror, simply lost control. Even a revenge-  
bent Shampoo isn't going to hold onto a cat when it's wetting on her.  
She let go, and the cat landed rather hard on its back. It took only   
a second or two to recover, and began scrambling off in whatever   
direction it could, trying to escape.  
  
But Shampoo has more experience at being a cat than most folks, including   
these boys. So while the escapee managed to get out of the NekoHanten,  
he didn't get much farther before being caught. Once she had both cats  
well in hand, she proceeded to tie their tails *together*. The two cats   
attempted to run off in different directions, and wound up dragging each   
other in a direction that lay somewhere between their individual   
destinations. Shampoo smiled maliciously. That'd teach them. Their   
rear ends would be so sore from all that pulling, it'd be as effective   
as having given them both a thorough spanking, without the possibility   
of their enjoying it, like Mousse might.  
  
Say what you will about eye-for-an-eye vigilante justice, it certainly   
gives the former victim a great deal of satisfaction. Shampoo even went   
so far as to say that at that moment, as she went scrambling after the  
escapee, and later, as she watched the two cats skitter through the   
NekoHanten alley in a sort of zig-zag route, she had never felt so...  
alive. Not human, maybe, but alive. And that's what matters, ne?  
  
*****  
  
Lying on that same examination table,Soun, on the other hand, was   
quite clearly dead. To be sure, he looked pretty good, as tasteless   
and cliche that might be to say of a corpse. His skin, though somewhat  
pale, was unwrinkled despite his nearly seventy years, years in which   
the rivers of tears he cried might have etched canyons on a lesser  
man's face. His hair, too, was still quite full and dark, a situation   
even Ranma is beginning to envy as he approaches the milestone   
of his fortieth year. But that's another story, and shall be told at   
another time.  
  
There is no talk about how it happened, which strikes me as rather  
odd. Certainly, if a martial artist dies fighting, it is a matter of great   
honor (and perhaps vengeance); if a suicide, one would expect certain   
reactions in accordance with the situation. I don't recall anything   
being said about any long illness, either...  
  
And it's not like Nerima keeps its secrets very well; if nothing else,   
there's always Nagisa, the elder Saotome daughter, who's following   
in her aunt Nabiki's footsteps. If you really need information - and   
can afford it - she's the one to go to. But even she's not talking.   
She's never one to admit when she doesn't know, though...  
  
[Gosunkugi pauses to run his hand meaningfully through his own   
greying hair]  
  
Personally, I think he's been dyeing his hair all this time, and   
whatever's in that stuff finally caught up with him. Folks around   
here are generally suspicious of chemicals, and for good reason   
(witness most folks' reaction to Kodachi Kunou, after all). Of course,  
maybe I'm just jealous, too...  
  
*****  
  
The funeral itself, as I said before, was quite civil for Nerima.  
Genma did his part to set a sober mood. Not once did he turn into a   
panda, and even at the buffet table in the kitchen, he was quite   
restrained -- he only took three helpings of curried chicken with   
rice. When he walked up to the casket, he set up the Go board on   
his old friend's chest. He wasn't going to be playing Go again, anyway.  
Both he and Soun had tried to teach Nodoka the game, but she just  
didn't play fair; she simply wouldn't let them cheat. So with Soun gone,  
all the fun was out of the game, and Genma knew it. In tribute to his  
longtime partner, he had set the board up on Soun's chest in an endgame   
position for black to win -- Soun's color. At the last, Genma had cheated   
to give Soun the victory.  
  
Happosai added a tribute of his own to his weak-willed disciple; a pair   
of purple silk panties with a sheer mesh in the front panel. Typical   
Happosai. Some folks were quite naturally disgusted, others were curious   
as to whose they might have been (some even whispered that Happi was   
finally returning a pair that had belonged to Soun's long-dead wife),   
and others realized, looking at the garment, that this was a great   
sacrifice indeed for the Master to make, and high praise indeed for   
his former student.  
  
Of course, not everyone approached Happi's offering with such reverence:   
"Frederique! Frederique!"   
  
A short, pudgy woman bounded forward to the casket, and nimbly slipped the   
panty from Soun's fingers. She clutched it to her own breast as if it was   
hers, and from her demeanor, it was pretty clear she already thought it was.  
  
"Azusa, set that back where it belongs... have a little respect for the dead,   
will you?" Mikado Sanzenin approached his wife, snatching the garment from   
her and placing it back in the casket. Azusa's eyes went wide and teary,   
and then she began to look wildly about for something, anything... she had   
to get her Fredrique back from Mikki-chan.  
  
She grabbed The Wreath.  
  
"Give me back my Fredrique!" Mikado stared, transfixed, as eight feet of   
solid flowers came crashing down upon him. As unconsciousness descended   
upon him with the flowers, he wondered why he had been so stupid as to sleep   
with his dim-bulb partner some eighteen years ago, and wind up forced into   
'doing the right thing' by her when something went horribly wrong shortly   
thereafter. He had spent the last eighteen years discovering just how   
horribly wrong things had gone.  
  
So had their son. Seventeen-year-old Naruhito Sanzenin buried his face in   
his hands, and was wondering for the umpteen-millionth time very much the   
same thought as his father was. His parents never failed to embarrass him   
in public. Between his mother's weird kleptomania and his father's   
philandering, he was convinced that he had drawn nearly the worst parents in   
the world. He never went so far in his mind as to wish that his mother had   
gotten an abortion rather than marry his father, but he certainly wished   
time and again that the two idiots that he was forced to call 'parents' had   
used some kind of protection... or maybe not 'done it' at all! Why, if   
they'd delayed by a few seconds, someone else could have put their quarter   
into the great cosmic vending machine before they had, and he could have   
wound up with a completely different set of parents, maybe in a completely   
different part of the world. Why, he wondered, couldn't he have been born   
to some nice couple in Minnesota, say, where things are quiet and normal,   
and parents don't embarrass their children the way Mikado and Azusa did to   
Naruhito? He couldn't even muster the nerve to ask a girl out, for fear   
that she might run away screaming upon meeting the Golden Pair of Fools.  
  
Just as this thought crossed his mind, a vision stood up to confront his   
squabbling parents (Mikado had by this time recovered from the blow to   
the head, and was matching his wife decibel for decibel). A girl of   
about sixteen, clad in flowing white, like an angel or goddess, eyes   
filled with righteous fury. "Will you two idiots STOP THIS AT ONCE!"   
Her image filled Naruhito's gaze: *this* was a girl he could take home   
without fear. He watched, transfixed, as she pulled a coin from her   
pocket...  
  
...and drained all the fight out of his parents, who fell to the floor   
unconscious and shrivelled. The girl transformed into a voluptuous   
brunette of some forty years, and Naruhito's face fell. Only his hands   
were there to catch it before it landed in his lap.  
  
*****  
  
Perhaps Naruhito would have found comfort in the fact that he was not   
alone when it came to being embarrassed by his parents. Of course, he   
would have been unaware of Yoiko Hibiki's frustration, as neither she   
nor her parents had arrived at the clinic yet. In fact, that was the   
main cause of her fury. Couldn't her mom lay off the submissive wife   
bit long enough to insist she take the wheel? It was obvious her dad   
was clueless as to how to get back to Nerima, a place where he *claimed*  
to have spent a great deal of time. Yoiko had inherited her mother's   
sense of direction, which was a good thing, but her father's temper,   
and her father's sense of direction tended to be what set it off.  
  
The only good thing she could say about her father in this situation was   
that at least he was willing to ask for directions. But even when he asked,  
somehow the information always got tangled up somewhere between the   
man's ears and his brain - assuming he *had* one, which Yoiko was prone   
to doubt much of the time:  
  
Pointing ahead: "So I head south to route...?"  
  
"That's west, dear."  
  
"Oh. So I need to turn..."  
  
"Left, daddy." The tires squeal as the car turns. "DADDY! I said LEFT!   
Mommmm!!"  
  
"Now, honey, your daddy's been here many times in the past..."  
  
Sotto voce: "By accident..."  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"Nothing, daddy."  
  
And so on. Yoiko would glance at her watch from time to time... and   
occassionally it would be glowing with chi energy she'd built up from   
fuming at the situation. It wasn't that she was in any hurry to get to   
the funeral - she didn't know Soun Tendo from Adam, and didn't care -   
but she had friends she'd met on the Internet that she wanted to try   
to look up while she was in town. She was looking forward to all the   
sophisticated things they might do together in the big city - riding   
the subway, shopping the Ginza, visiting some place they called   
Soapland... it all sounded like a fairy tale.  
  
Akari fretted a bit herself. She was sorely tempted to take the wheel -   
surely she wanted to pay her respects to the families that had helped   
bring her and Ryoga-sama together, and unless he relinquished the   
driving to her, they would not have a chance - but as for Yoiko...   
there were temptations to the big city that were too much for a pig   
farmer's daughter from nothern Honshu. She looked back over her   
shoulder at her daughter, steaming in her pink sweatshirt with the   
English legend "I am curious (yellow)" emblazoned diagonally across  
it from shoulder to hip. Yes, she was too curious for her own good.  
Better that they not find their way, and she not meet up with those   
unsavory characters she'd met on the computer. Who knew what   
they might do to her?  
  
Each of the Hibikis were so lost in their own thoughts that they never   
noticed when the skyscrapers were upon them. What finally shook   
each of them was when Ryoga took yet another wrong turn, and ran   
into... a hearse. Akari smiled as Ryoga got out to inspect the damage.  
She had gotten both wishes: they'd made it in time to pay respects   
to Soun, and the car would be unavailable for Yoiko to wander into   
temptation.  
  
Yoiko buried her face in her lap, as she realized the same thing as   
her mother had. She didn't notice as the driver of the hearse, after   
determining that the 10 kph collision hadn't really affected his vehicle,   
clapped her father on the back, nor did she notice a second man her   
father's age, dressed in a red Chinese shirt come up to them, asking   
for room in her father's car, muttering something about "kids these   
days...not willing to walk only a couple of miles." She *did* notice,   
however, as her door opened, and she was suddenly joined by Akima   
Saotome, Yoichi Ono, and Naruhito Sanzenin, while the two Saotome   
sisters crowded up front with her mother.  
  
Ryoga got back into the car, backed it up a few yards (still well within   
eyeshot of the hearse), and fell in line behind it as it resumed its slow  
crawl to the crematorium. Suddenly she felt very shy, as she said   
her hellos to the three boys crammed against her. This wasn't turning   
out to be a total loss...  
  
And as the older folks crowded around the two cars, making all manner   
of noise, I got into my own car and drove of in the opposite direction.   
After all, I had a three-hour drive into downtown Tokyo to make, and   
I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour. The ol' body needs its   
sleep... it ain't what it used to be, you know...  
  
  
And that's the News from Nerima...  
where all the women are strong (and how!)...  
all the men are... well, they aren't always men, actually...  
and all the craziness is above average.  
  
*****  
  
I sent this incomplete story well over a year ago, and I've finally gotten   
around to wrapping it up. This is the sort of thing that looks like it could   
become a passable continuing series. There's also a large section that   
includes my earlier side story "Tied to the Tail," but I decided to leave it in   
in somewhat abridged format just for the heck of it.  
  
I've had a great fondness for Garrison Keillor's works that harks back   
a long ways, and when the challenge went out to imitate an well-known   
author in a regulation fanfic, it occured to me to mimic his style. Once   
I started on this story in earnest, I did try to flip through 'Leaving Home'  
and 'Lake Wobegon Days' to try and maintain his understated style,   
but for the most part, the problem is that Nerima (and the characters   
therein) is wild and crazy while Lake Wobegon is quiet and ordinary.   
So I decided to focus on the how everyone has changed over time,   
and I figured as long as the intro and the ending rang similarly, and the   
stuff in the middle rambled a bit (I'm good at that, anyway), everything  
would turn out fairly well.  
  
I've got another story for this series already in the works - it's alluded   
to within the body of the tale; the first person to correctly spot the   
reference gets a cookie and a possible cameo in a future fic - but   
gosh only knows when *that*ll be ready for publication: I've discovered,  
much to my embarrassment, that my unfinished fics now outnumber   
my completed ones, and after two-plus years of this, that's saying   
quite a bit.  
  
Anyway, it's a draft... comments are always welcome, you know.  
  
Itsu mo,  
Ucchan ^_^  
  
P.S. My web site's finally been updated! Yay! Drop by when you   
get the chance:  
  
http://members.aol.com/ukyoukwnji/index.htm  
  



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